Real estate titan Mort Zuckerman reportedly is thinking of making a bid for Newsweek magazine, which is now up for sale.
Zuckerman already owns the New York Daily News and US News & World Report.
Zuckerman thinks he could cut costs markedly by combining Newsweek with US News, which now comes out monthly, sources recently told the New York Post.
Other suitors said to be interested in Newsweek include Thomson Reuters and billionaires Ron Burkle and Haim Saban.
Bids for the magazine are due June 4 to Allen & Co., which is conducting the sale, the Post reports.
The Washington Post Co. recently decided to unload Newsweek because of its mushrooming losses. The Internet has put a dent into its advertising and circulation revenue.
Newsweek suffered an operating loss of $28.1 million last year, widening 83 percent from $15.4 million in 2008. Its revenue dropped 27.2 percent.
In his past forays with magazines, Zuckerman booked a huge profit selling Fast Company in 2000 for $365 million. But he didn’t make out so well with his sale of The Atlantic a year earlier.
Newsweek’s decline symbolizes the end of an era, Charles Whitaker, research chairman of magazine journalism Northwestern University, told The New York Times.
“The newsweeklies, for so long, have tried to be all things to all people, and that’s just not going to cut it in this highly niche, politically polarized, media-stratified environment that we live in today.”
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